Ian Boyne
MEL GIBSON'S The Passion of the Christ has created a sensation in religious film-making that is absolutely unprecedented and perhaps never to be repeated. No other movie in the history of Hollywood religious or secular has received as much pre-release hype and attracted as much wide-ranging discussion as The Passion of the Christ.
It is Christianity's finest hour in terms of the communication of its central message of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world. The Christian church is not accustomed to this kind of positive attention from Hollywood. And while The Passion has generated much passion and criticism for its alleged excessive violence and anti-Semitism, it has also forcefully and grippingly thrust on the consciousness of many the intense suffering which Jesus endured, and it has led many to seriously reflect on the meaning of life and of the Christ event.
But the phenomenal and spectacular success of The Passion of the Christ masks the profound crisis which Christianity is facing in the west. Indeed, the message of the Cross the message of suffering, pain and the self-sacrifice which is demanded of the Christian life as portrayed by the New Testament clashes violently with the hedonistic, narcissistic and materialistic cultural values of the western world. People might get very emotional and teary-eyed when they view Mel Gibson's film, and might go home feeling touched by what that righteous man suffered nearly two thousand years ago, but they have certainly no intention of taking up that Cross.
ON THE DECLINE
The mainline Christian denominations are declining in North America, Europe and the developing world. Indeed, they are largely dead in Europe. Europe has undergone a profound, incredible de-Christianisation. (Not incredible to those acquainted with Sociologist Peter Berger's Secularisation Theory which suggests that as societies industrialise they become more secular). Many churches are closing their doors in Europe and the few which are opened house a few people in their 70s and 80s.
The United States is the only industrialised country which defies the Secularisation Theory, but even there the people are only superficially religious. The churches which are growing in America and the countries in the west are the Charismatic, Pentecostal, name-it-claim-it churches which preach a Health and Wealth Gospel. They are churches which teach people that if they have enough faith they will be healthy and wealthy, live in big homes, get the right mates to marry, find the right jobs etc. and have an abundant life now. In other words, churches which are merely retailing a version of the capitalist philosophy. They are offering Heaven on earth now.
The message of the Cross has long been sidelined in these churches. Just tune in to Creflow Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Frederick K C Pryce, Jesse Duplantis, Rod Parsley and their local imitation on religious television here. The message is about what Jesus can do for you, how he can bless you, how he can set you up and give you prosperity. Rarely do you hear that "It is through much tribulation that you will enter the kingdom of God"; to "endure suffering as a good soldier" or that "Jesus suffered, leaving us an example". You don't hear messages regularly about bearing the Cross, counting the cost, denying self, putting God before family, friends, careers etc. The cost of discipleship. It is self-indulgent Gospel fitted to the ideology of western capitalism.
GLOBALISATION
AND CHRISTIANITY
Besides, the traditional exclusivist Christian Gospel that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the whole world and that salvation comes only through His substitutionary sacrifice on the Cross runs counter to the pluralistic philosophy which pervades western society. Globalisation relates not just to the movement of goods, services, technology and people but also to ideas. Globalisation is inextricably linked to pluralism and the acceptance of a variety of cultures, worldviews and philosophical viewpoints.
The idea that one man could be the sole, exclusive source of
salvation strikes many persons as irredeemably arrogant and chauvinistic. What about Chinese, African and Arab cultures? Don't they have their soteriologies? Besides, the increasing influence of postmodernism in the social sciences and humanities has dealt a severe blow to all notions of objective, trans-cultural mata-narratives. According to postmodernists and deconstructionists such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard and Michel Foucault, there is no such notion as a propositional, one-size-fits-all 'truth' which is independent of human theorising.
Knowledge, according to this view, is a social construct. There is no "view from nowhere". Theology is culturally and socially conditioned.
So the Gospel writers might have apprehended Jesus of Nazareth as the Saviour, and early Christian communities might have proclaimed His death as salvific not because that is objectively so but it was subjectively so for those communities.
The radical views of Rastafarian poet Mutabaruka are quite commonplace in the most sophisticated seminaries and religious studies departments of secular universities. There are many Christian scholars such as the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar and others who believe that Jesus did not die for the sins of the world ("I don't want to be washed in anybody's blood", says Bishop John Shelby Spong); that He was never literally resurrected; that he was not God and that most of what is written about Him in the Gospels are mythical and represent theology, not history. Many Christian scholars today say that the Bible contains contradictions, errors and the limited, even prejudiced, views of its writers. Whereas Jamaicans were taught traditionally to answer life's big questions by quoting from the Bible and getting a "Thus Saith the Lord," these scholars say that the Bible cannot provide a final, infallible guide to action in the 21st century.
The impact of globalisation, pluralism and postmodernism plus the Bultmannian demythologising of the Bible which began in the nineteenth century, have all had a destabalising effect on Christianity. There are many pastors preaching in the pulpits today all over the world and in Jamaica whose views would be absolutely shocking to the average church member if known to them. Almost every one of the cherished, unquestioned beliefs of the church is rejected by these ministers who mount the pulpit every weekend. Some agree with Mutabaruka there was no Virgin birth of Jesus, that his physical body was not resurrected, that He is not returning in the skies to bring the world to an end, and that portions of the Bible reflect the human views of the authors.
RELIGIONLESS RELIGION
Coupled with the intellectual doubts which have been raised about Christian doctrine is a view of religion which is increasingly phenomenological. There has been a decided, deliberate moving away from a dogmatic, doctrinaire view of Christianity and religion in general, to a view which focuses on the core values in all the major world religions. In their words, there has been a de-emphasis on doctrine, correct belief and authoritative church tradition. More and more you hear even conservative Christians stressing personal experience, one-and-one-relationship with Christ, rather than adherence to a rigid set of doctrines taught by a church.
We are moving into an age of religionless religion and non-denominationalism. People are focusing more on compassion, love, harmony, personal spiritual transformation rather than dogma. Many Christians are saying it is far more important to show love to the oppressed, the dehumanised and rejected than it is to proclaim dogmatically that Jesus died for the sins of everyone; that Christianity is the only true religion and that you must believe this or that set of beliefs to be saved.
In the 1960s there was a cultural revolution in America which saw many people turning east for spiritual enlightenment. Middle class people found Christianity stale, lifeless, too dogmatic, less spiritual. They were in quest of ecstatic spiritual experiences; they wanted to be in touch with their feelings and wanted a sense of the Ultimate or the numinous awe; a sense of the Other.
They found versions of Buddhism and Hinduism quite amenable. As westerners they were schooled in pragmatism. Some wanted to feel a sense of connectedness with God without giving up the western value of sexual liberation, individuality and philosophical autonomy. They wanted a religion that they could custom-build and package for themselves as people culturally conditioned by western consumerism. They found the smorgasbord of New Age religions quite delectable.
In Jamaica there are middle class Jamaicans who are turned off from traditional Christianity and are into a lot of the New Religions which promise spiritual liberation without the trappings of a whole lot of doctrines. Christianity at least of the sort taught in the New Testament is in deep trouble. The churches which still have the message of the Cross and which are holding to the Nicene Creed are declining in membership and influence. The churches that are growing here, apart from the Seventh-Day Adventists, are teaching a religion of pabulum, a feel-good religion, a religion of prosperity through spiritual lottery. There are few people really seeking to find out what the Bible really says about how God should be worshipped. Few are interested in rigorously examining the doctrinal claims of the various combatants in the religious field. They simply want a religion to satisfy their desires and to give them some blessings.
CHRISTIANITY IN TROUBLE
Christianity is in trouble from all angles. The cultural dominance of the materialistic and hedonistic west, with its worship of mammon and power, reinforced by media (particularly cable television); the growing influence of postmodernist, relativistic philosophy on the intellectual elite; the raging storm of liberal biblical scholarship which makes it impossible to know what any text really means and which, indeed, questions the need to have any text to explain the Ground of our being; plus the superficial, sentimental and intellectually vacuous popular Christianity now dominant as an American export, have all combined to produce a crisis in Christianity. Can Christianity be resurrected? Will there be the equivalent of an Easter Sunday morning for Christianity? (Orthodox Christians believe Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday).
The wars, hatred and animosity spawned by Christians, Muslims and other religious people have not endeared many to any view which says my way is the only way and my God is better than your God. So, increasingly, the message of Easter will be repugnant to many people who will identify it with dogmatism, intolerance and even arrogance.
Increasingly, people will look on the Biblical story of Jesus' death and resurrection the same way they look on fables and myth: As symbolic, archetypal 'truth' meant to convey beyond-the-surface meanings. Literal, historical truth is being buried in the sea of postmodernism. Can Christianity be resurrected?
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can send you comments to ianboyne@yahoo.com.
